Shoutout to Alinaza for the commission!
The second time that night, still in the living room.
Outside the large sheets of glass windows fitted seamlessly with ceiling and floor, the molten moonlight fell into the brilliant human fireworks, the most bustling night view of Beicheng just beneath their feet.
Jiang Se’s feet at first couldn’t touch the ground, her sweat-damp black hair caught struggling in the narrow slit between glass and her back bones.
When she finally touched ground, the mundane glitter of the chaotic night outside crashed straight into her sight.
She even saw the streak left by a plane tearing through the night sky.
Lu Huaiyan was pushed by her to the point of being unable to move, holding her waist, saying at her ear: “Relax, specially-made glass, people outside can’t see us.”
He wouldn’t let a second person see her like this.
This version of her could only belong to him.
The man’s breath was not steady, disorderly and rough, twining around her ear like the hot mist rising when a steamer lid is first lifted.
Under Jiang Se’s palm, the glass surface warmed into a thin layer of fog.
Before the fog dispersed, she met the pair of dark, heavy eyes reflected in the window, furrowing her brows, very softly calling: “Lu Huaiyan.”
Lu Huaiyan heard her and drew in a deep breath, lowering his head to press against her damp temple, voice suppressed and hoarse: “You’re driving me insane.”
……
After finishing, Jiang Se only wanted to sleep, and Lu Huaiyan carried her into a quick shower and then let her lie on the bed.
He was not sleepy, so he simply turned sideways, propping up his neck, quietly looking at her under the faint light leaking in from the window.
His gaze was quiet, the air was quiet, even the moon spread across the windowsill was quiet.
In this quiet, Jiang Se suddenly said: “Why aren’t you sleeping yet?”
She didn’t open her eyes, her face still stained with faded flush buried in fluffy messy hair, her pretty lashes resting on her lower lids.
Lu Huaiyan’s thin cold lips curved slightly, his index finger knuckle bent, slowly tracing a stroke on her forehead, “Your eyes are closed but you still know I’m awake, is there a third eye here?”
Jiang Se opened her eyes to look at him: “Are you in sage time now?”
Guo Qian said men all have sage time, and all like to have a post-s*x cigarette at that time to put on some pretentious cool.
Lu Huaiyan didn’t smoke.
Not that he didn’t, but he quit; the last time she saw him smoke was the first time she went to Junyue. Right in that glass balcony, he smoked while looking at her.
After that she never saw him smoke again, and when he occasionally carried smoke scent from some other place, he would deliberately keep a distance from her.
Hearing the four words “sage time,” Lu Huaiyan let out a loose laugh, the chest against her shoulder faintly shaking.
He made an amused “mm,” lowered his hand, leaned in to kiss her.
“Can’t have a post-s*x cigarette, then let’s have a post-s*x kiss.”
It was a very delicate kiss.
First sucking the middle of her upper lip, then her lips, and after prying her teeth open, her moist mouth.
Not mixed with desire, only the gentleness brewed in the night.
When their lips parted, Lu Huaiyan’s breath fell on her nose tip, quietly watching her eyes.
“Miss, how many days do you plan to stay in Beicheng?”
“Don’t know,” Jiang Se closed her eyes briefly, said, “Maybe one or two months, maybe half a year or longer.”
Lu Huaiyan: “Good, then I don’t have to make time to go back to Tongcheng.”
Hearing this, Jiang Se opened her eyes again, asked him: “Aren’t you going to ask what I’m doing in Beicheng?”
“If I ask, will you tell me?”
Jiang Se paused a moment, said: “No.”
Lu Huaiyan laughed: “Then why ask you, just to force you to lie to me? I’ll just assume you missed me and had to come find me in Beicheng.”
The latter half was obviously a joke.
Jiang Se silently looked at him, and after a while, she faintly said: “Auntie Han said the abbot of Hanshan Temple calculated that you’ll have a blood calamity this year.”
Lu Huaiyan gave a calm “mm,” and seeing she seemed no longer sleepy, sat up leaning against the headboard, fingers absentmindedly playing with her earlobe.
“What? Worried about me?” he laughed, “When I was young, a supposedly powerful monk said I had a hard life. Didn’t your older brother tell you?”
Jiang Se didn’t remember if Cen Li had said it, but she did deliver the message from Han Yin.
“In any case, you be careful this year, Auntie Han will worry.”
Lu Huaiyan clicked his tongue, the hand toying with her earlobe adding a bit of force: “So you’re worried for mother?”
Jiang Se didn’t speak, silent a moment, then like a cat whose fur had been rubbed the wrong way, slapped his hand, saying: “Forget how hard you were sucking just now?”
Lu Huaiyan’s hand obediently stopped, “Does it hurt?”
He turned on a reading lamp, his hand lightly pushing aside the loose strands by her ear, lowering his head to look at her earlobe, a “tsz” sound: “Was I really that brutal just now?”
This girl’s skin was terribly delicate, he had even thought he’d been very restrained, yet he still managed to break the skin.
When the light turned on, Jiang Se was stung by the sudden flood of brightness and closed her eyes. Now hearing his question, she lifted her lids and quietly looked at him.
Lu Huaiyan was laughed at by her stare.
Back then she could hold a shard of broken glass and say with a straight face that it didn’t hurt, and now getting her skin broken by him sucking on it and she’s acting like a debt collector.
Really… getting more and more delicate.
He laughed and said: “Are you secretly keeping a ledger in your heart, planning to flip old accounts later and forbid me from touching this bit of flesh on your ear?”
“……”
Lu Huaiyan lifted this little debt collector out of the blanket, one arm carrying her off the bed.
Jiang Se was slung over his arm, her hands instinctively looping around his neck, “Lu Huaiyan, what are you doing?”
“Putting medicine on you. After I’m done, remember to cross off that debt you just added.”
“……”
The sofa in the living room was all the clothes they had just taken off. Lu Huaiyan directly set her on the kitchen island, pulled out the medicine box, and dabbed iodine on her.
After he finished, he brushed aside the hair at her ear, bent down, turned his head slightly and lightly blew on the broken skin.
When he was applying medicine, Jiang Se’s eyes had been lowered the whole time, silent.
Feeling the ticklish brush of wind on her earlobe, she lifted her lids a bit, slanting him a glance.
Lu Huaiyan tossed the cotton swab, and while lowering his head to put the medicine box away, asked: “The newly added debt, is it crossed out?”
Jiang Se didn’t bother answering him, her bare foot touching his knee, saying: “I’m hungry.”
Lu Huaiyan glanced at the time, almost eleven.
He did need to feed her something, otherwise it’d be like last time, waking up hungry in the middle of the night and finding nothing to eat.
“What do you want? Want me to cook, or get delivery?”
Jiang Se said she wanted chicken soup wontons.
Lu Huaiyan: “Zhenbaozhai?”
Jiang Se made an “mm” sound.
Zhenbaozhai was an old Cantonese restaurant in Beicheng, tight and popular for decades, always requiring a long line for a number. It was also a place they’d been eating at since childhood.
Back in elementary and middle school, Cen Li would often run to Zhenbaozhai after classes to pack chicken soup wontons for Jiang Se.
Back then Han Yin wasn’t vegetarian yet, also liked this restaurant’s chicken soup wontons, so Lu Huaiyan often went with Cen Li.
Cen Li once even showed him and Guo Song a photo of Jiang Se eating chicken soup wontons.
Little girl six or seven, straight shiny bangs, her cheek puffed up by half a wonton, her eyes round and wide.
Lu Huaiyan never paid much attention to that photo before, just glanced and dismissed it, not even making a comment.
Now he actually felt regret. Such a cute look, and he didn’t save a single photo.
Zhenbaozhai closed at eleven. Lu Huaiyan called just in time, and the owner personally told the head chef to fire up the stove again, then personally delivered it to Ruidu Huafu.
The chicken soup was a very rich ginseng chicken broth, golden in a small pot, with six handmade shrimp-filled wontons stewing inside.
Jiang Se had only eaten half of her pot when a phone call interrupted.
Both of them recognized the caller ID: Mo Jichen.
Previously Jiang Se had told Mo Jichen that as long as there was any progress at all on the New Year’s Eve case, he could call her anytime.
Mo Jichen indeed had new progress.
“The people below just sorted out a list of those who purchased rose rock sugar in the past two months. I’ll send it to you later, take a look and see if any names look familiar. That Uncle Tong bought the rock sugar he brought to the Cen family himself. If he wasn’t the one who drugged it, then someone replaced that jar. I checked everyone who entered the tea room. Not many people could have swapped it.”
Jiang Se put down the spoon in her hand, lightly said: “There’s an inside man at the old house.”
Mo Jichen said: “Exactly. The surveillance in the tea room had no signs of tampering. That night, aside from Uncle Tong, no one touched that jar. Meaning the sugar must have been switched between when Uncle Tong handed it to the old house steward and when it was sent to the tea room.”
Everything used for Cen family banquets was managed by several stewards of the old house. The jar of sugar Uncle Tong brought her indeed had to be given to them first, checked, confirmed fine, then delivered to the tea room along with the other items.
Jiang Se pursed her lips, thought for two seconds, and asked Mo Jichen: “Does Officer Mo have a specific suspect?”
Mo Jichen laughed softly: “Those old stewards of the Cen family… they’re not easy to question. The range of my suspicion is them and the servants working for them that night. Suspicion is suspicion, none of them are on the purchasing list for rose rock sugar, so I can’t do deeper questioning. But since they’re not on the list, that jar of sugar with triazolam likely came from a third person who passed it to whoever delivered it to the old house. Of course, all of this is just my speculation.”
A third person…
Jiang Se gave a light “mm,” the profiles of the old house stewards flashing one by one in her mind.
While she was thinking, a low voice suddenly brushed by her ear: “Open your mouth.”
Jiang Se blinked, looked at the wonton Lu Huaiyan held by her mouth, and opened to eat it.
His voice obviously made Mo Jichen on the other end pause: “Miss Jiang is in Beicheng now?”
Jiang Se swallowed her food: “Yes, just arrived today.”
Mo Jichen immediately knew she was eating, smiled a bit, said: “Lu Huaiyan’s next to you? Let me say a few words to him, you keep eating.”
Lu Huaiyan took the phone Jiang Se handed over, placed the spoon in her hand, and reminded: “The soup’s cooling, eat it while it’s hot.”
Then he lifted the phone, speaking to Mo Jichen: “You’re pretty good at picking timing.”
“……”
Mo Jichen clicked his tongue, rubbing his exhausted face, “Do you know how many cases I’m investigating? Know how many nights I haven’t slept properly?”
Lu Huaiyan curved his lips: “You’ve worked hard, thank you.”
Mo Jichen sighed with a smile: “Don’t thank me yet, this case is more troublesome than I thought. I have a few murder cases on hand to investigate, I’ll hand this matter over to my apprentice next.”
After sighing he chatted a bit about other things with Lu Huaiyan, and when the phone returned to Jiang Se’s hand, she had already finished a bowl of chicken soup wontons. Mo Jichen didn’t want to disturb her date with Lu Huaiyan, after saying what needed to be said, he decisively hung up.
Lu Huaiyan saw her lowering her eyes without speaking, knowing she was thinking about that case, then said: “Go to sleep first, think about the rest tomorrow.”
Jiang Se lifted her eyes to look at him, said: “Carry me back to the room.”
Her feet were bare, legs soft, she was too lazy to walk herself. Once they reached the room, she moved, wanting to get down from his arms, planning to slip on shoes to go wash up in the bathroom.
Lu Huaiyan didn’t let go, directly carried her into the bathroom, placed her on the counter, lowered his head to squeeze toothpaste for her, and said: “Didn’t you say you had no strength? Tonight Older Brother will brush your teeth for you.”
If it were usual times, Jiang Se would definitely snatch the electric toothbrush from his hand to brush herself, but right now, she didn’t know why, she obediently opened her mouth.
Her teeth grew well; each one Lu Huaiyan had touched and licked.
When brushing the one wisdom tooth inside that had only grown out halfway, he raised his eyes to look at her, and said: “Cen Li had both his wisdom teeth pulled, why didn’t you pull this one?”
For wisdom teeth that haven’t fully come out, dentists usually recommend removing them. With Ji Yunyi’s personality, she would definitely have told her to pull it.
Jiang Se turned her head to spit out the foam in her mouth, after rinsing slowly said: “This wisdom tooth didn’t make me hurt or uncomfortable, why would I pull it?”
Lu Huaiyan laughed.
Listen to that, quite stubborn, also domineering.
Just like when she said the qipao shop was her thing and no one was allowed to touch it.
The man lowered his head to pick up his own toothbrush, and when almost done brushing, heard her ask out of boredom: “Did you grow wisdom teeth, Lu Huaiyan?”
Lu Huaiyan’s hand paused.
Was this girl always this unfocused when kissing him?
After he and she finished their first kiss, he already knew whether she had grown wisdom teeth, how many teeth she had, and how to kiss her to make her the most excited.
Thinking back carefully, every time they kissed, he was always the one attacking in her mouth, and she had never done so to him.
Lu Huaiyan didn’t answer her, calmly finished the whole washing-up routine, then lifted his hand and switched off the bathroom light.
Jiang Se thought he was going to carry her back to bed, but instead the man squeezed in between her legs, large hand cupping the back of her head, said to her word by word: “Whether I grew them, how many, you find the answer yourself.”
After saying so he didn’t care whether she wanted to know or not, forcefully pried open her teeth, hooked her tongue into his mouth.
The mouthwash he used was extremely spicy, a strong minty taste.
They used the same toothpaste and same mouthwash, their breaths full of that cool mint scent.
At first Jiang Se didn’t want to cooperate, saying she was just casually asking, already didn’t want to know the answer.
But he had decided she must find the answer, and must find it this way. Even when her tongue got bitten and bled, he wouldn’t stop until he heard her panting angrily saying “didn’t grow”, then he gave a suppressed laugh, let her go, and like rewarding with a candy, kissed her forehead heavily.
“Correct.”
